xparrot | would you like a little RAGE with your RAGE?

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would you like a little RAGE with your RAGE?

So Martin Gero made some comments on the most recent episode of SGA.

"For five years, we didn’t even know it, but all [Rodney] wanted was for someone to tell him that they loved him in an unconditional way."

I want to...I want to kick Martin Gero's head in with a big spiky boot. OF LOVE.

So the love of friends and family (because doesn't Jeannie love him, too? or was she lying when she said "I love you" in "Miller's Crossing" and faking her tears in "The Shrine"?) counts for snot, because it's not romantic, sexual love.

And unconditional love is quoting a guy's own brain-damaged love confession back at him (six months later), and then offering him sex on a plane to make him shut up.

I have no boyfriend! I HAVE NO LOVE! What do I do??? My life is empty! Meaningless!

*cue total fucking mental breakdown*

Okay, now I'm going to do my best to forget this episode ever happened. There's been other eps I haven't enjoyed, but this is the first one that's seriously in danger of spoiling my fanning. It pretty much ruined Rodney's character for me even when I was ignoring the McKeller (I swear, I'd've been almost as outraged if the ep had gone the same way only with John instead of Keller, though at least then I'd have some McShep making out), and now that I am meant to think that banging Keller on the plane is the most significant and important event of Rodney's life in the past five years - yeah. Someone tell me how to hold onto my SGA love, because I don't want to lose this fandom, but the show seems pretty determined to use its dying breath to drive me away.

ETA: I gotta say, SGA these days is really making me appreciate NCIS. NCIS has one s5 ep that is explicitly the 100% opposite theme as this.

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(three replies for the win!)

Reading these comments over again - I wish there was some way to assure you that all slashers are not out to deny John & Rodney's friendship (or any other character's). I can tell you that from my perspective, McShep does not invalidate John-Rodney friendship. When I give a scene between them a slashy reading, I am never, ever trying to imply that if they didn't have physical attraction, they wouldn't be as close.

And I've said this before, I know...it just makes me weirdly depressed to think that when I started writing slash, you were forced to conclude I didn't care about John & Rodney's friendship anymore; that every slash fic I've written is pissing on their friendship, for you. For me, slash works just as h/c does; it's a short-hand way to get the chars to express the depth of feelings between them. (The original slash fic, to my understanding, was like this - people were writing Kirk/Spock in outrageous h/c scenarios to get them to confess their love, and then someone decided to just cut to the chase and have them express the love in a more traditional way.)

I think the problem is the social construct of "love" - "true love" is supposed to be romantic; "as a friend feels about another friend" is kind of a joke because friend love is not supposed to be as meaningful as romantic love (heck, most friends rarely even use the word "love" and especially among male friends it's usually treated as a joke when they do). Yet fen are constantly shown male-male friends with bonds more intense than any of their canon romantic bonds. At the same time, we have the social construct of the romantic "ever after"; there are almost no stories that put friendship above romance, in the end. You pretty much can't write a "happily ever after" that doesn't involve romantic love & marriage; there's no formula for it.

Slashers circumvented this, found the escape clause - make the friendship into romantic love, make it an acceptably complete happy ending. A lot of the early slash was the infamous "we're not gay, we just love each other" - the point wasn't homosexual love, the point was the love between two male friends. The point of slash isn't to deny friendship; it's to preserve it in the face of social expectation.

I understand your perspective on romance, that you find the traditional "happily ever after" emotionally disturbing and anything but happy. And I know you can't just switch your feelings around. But as threatened as you feel by slash, most slashers are honestly not trying to threaten you; most of the McSheppers I know absolutely love that the boys are best friends, and that's a large part of why they slash them.

"At the same time, we have the social construct of the romantic "ever after"; there are almost no stories that put friendship above romance, in the end. You pretty much can't write a "happily ever after" that doesn't involve romantic love & marriage; there's no formula for it."

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I just realized why I even read slash. I just like the "happily ever after" and nothing-ever-coming-between-them thing so much. On a sidenote, friendshipper is nearly the only author that I know of who manages to do that without writing slash (there are a few others, including the owner of the journal I´m now trespassing in, but she´s the best (that´s a purely personal opinion, of course.) Somebody once called it friendship romance, I think - that´s even better than slash.)
And, well, sorry for replying here anonymously and with nothing to say, but I don´t even have an account and I just wanted to thank you for the insight. So, thanks again.
LG
akn

Awwww, thank you! ^____^ That is very sweet. I really appreciate it.

It was totally wanting more of John and Rodney that got me into reading slash in this fandom. Since the beginning, my tastes have changed and I've begun craving slash stories that do interesting things with the relationship more than stories that keep them together. But sometimes I'm just in a mood for the boys doing stuff together, and it's much easier to find that in slash than in gen.

that's kind of funny. I started reading Gen Sheppard and McKay stories to get that feeling of something different that you can't find in slash.

I didn't even know what slash was when I started reading fanfic. I read gen, love h/c, and then between the deep friendship I was feeling watching the series on tv and reading more and more fic, I slowly got into slash to see the deeper friendship and as you so aptly put "wanting more of John and Rodney" and "craving slash stories that do interesting things with the relationship more than stories that keep them together." I ended up reading all kinds from satisfying relationship stories to PWP, depending on my mood. Still read gen, but just seems to be so much more slash and now I do crave it for the friendship and relationship, sex can be totally optional. Brainstorm has really stirred the emotions, hit a lot of sore spots and riled up all sides. The Gero interview struck me, as it did xparrot, like a slap in the face, just like the Brad Wright interview when he decided to go with SGU and basically kicked SGA to the side of the road and couldn't see why anyone was angry. I hope you are feeling better. Your posts are very well thought out and interesting.

Oh, most of my favorite slash OTPs, I started slashing less because I wanted to see them together and more because I didn't want to see anyone else coming between them. Gen smarm-fic sometimes has similar themes (and Friendshipper's is some of the best! ^^) But slash is often "safer" - you can be sure with slash that a random romantic interest isn't going to be introduced halfway through and take time away from the relationships you care about.

I really *really* don't want you to think that *I* think slashers are deliberately setting out to ruin my time in fandom! That would be extremely silly and paranoid and just not true. But I am pretty sure that the "kicked in the gut" feeling that McShep fen are feeling right is pretty similar to the way I feel when I read a slash fic where one of the boys declares something along the lines of "oh wow, I was spending all this time with you because I was attracted to you" or when I run across episode reactions that describe John as "flirting" with Rodney when I just saw him enjoying his company and liking hanging out with him.

But of course I'm not going to say anything to them about it; it's someone else's journal and someone else's story, and I have absolutely no right to jump in and make their fanning experience less happy. If their fanning style is making me unhappy, then it's my responsibility to either not venture into areas of fandom that make me unhappy, or learn to be more tolerant and less bothered by views that conflict with how I see the characters.

And I try, I try like anything to do that! Knowing that a lot of the people who frequent and comment at my journal are slash fen, I try to keep my episode reviews and discussions non-slash-hostile. I don't jump into discussions and say, "My squee, it is harshed by this", because I think I'd be a complete ass to do that, when everyone else is having fun and on the same page; if my squee is that easily harshed, then I need to keep my squee away from places that harsh it.

Also, like we talked about earlier, there is a certain amount of anti-gay bigotry in gen fandom, and I really, really don't want to fall into that trap. The last thing I'd want to do is make the gay fen who read and comment on my journal feel uncomfortable or unwelcome.

And I know that no one is harshing my squee on purpose. Of course, neither is Gero; he's simply describing the show as he sees it, and in the process, causing a bunch of fans to feel what I'm pretty sure is the same dismissiveness that they (entirely by accident and with no malice whatsoever) have caused me to feel, on a lesser scale of course, but pretty much a constant since I've been in fandom, especially in this fandom because I associate more closely with slash fen and read more slash than has generally been true of me in the past.

Obviously, as quote-unquote "oppression" goes, this is absolutely as petty as it gets. XD It's just that after so many years of trying so hard to get along with people, and to not put down their fannish tastes even when I felt like they were invalidating my own, it's kind of startling and unpleasant to see this same demographic in the same situation that I've been in, standing up and railing against it when I've spent so much time learning not to feel those feelings so that I won't be tempted to do exactly that to them. If I'm not getting upset about the Gero quote (which I'm really not), it's because I've so thoroughly trained myself not to get upset at that particular sentiment, to avoid being angry all the time! Not just because of fandom, but because of society in general. (Er, sorry about all the edits on this one. CAN'T TYPE.)

Edited 2008-11-25 19:01 (UTC)

Hmmm. The "oppression" here is somewhat different, since this is fans railing against a creator, rather than one set of fandom railing against another. If a fan had said this about McKeller, I wouldn't have had this sort of rage; I'd have just rolled my eyes and moved along. But when it's the creator telling us how we're supposed to interpret his work, telling us that our interpretation is wrong - that's a different kettle of fish.

Is it really just McSheppers flipping? Because as a strictly gen fan I swear I would've have the exact same meltdown; he's denying what I love most about the show. If anything I'm more offended on the gen side than the slash side; it's not just John/Rodney that Gero's denying, but also Rodney & team, and Rodney & Jeannie. The reason the slashers are flipping is because most slashers consider themselves friendshippers as well - they are responding to the same intensity of relationships that you are, they're just seeing them a bit differently. While as Gero is seeing entirely different relationships. Are all the other gen fen really okay with what he said?

That being said - I really am sorry that slash kicks you in the gut like that. I've not read many fics that state that John & Rodney only spend time together because of their sexual desire (barring AUs, most of the canon slash fic I've read with that idea are the early s1-2 ones, when their friendship was so scarcely established in canon that they needed the crutch of attraction to explain why they'd spend any time together.) It's not what I'd like to read, certainly.

Hmm...out of curiosity, does any of my slash give you that impression? (have you read any of my outright McShep?) As I said, I write from the perspective of seeing slash as an extension of the friendshipping, but I'm thinking what I write probably looks different if you see slash as a deliberate denial of friendship...

Hmm...out of curiosity, does any of my slash give you that impression? (have you read any of my outright McShep?) As I said, I write from the perspective of seeing slash as an extension of the friendshipping, but I'm thinking what I write probably looks different if you see slash as a deliberate denial of friendship...

I don't see it as a deliberate denial at all, just an indication of how the writer's priorities lie with regards to romantic love and friendship, with the latter being much less than the former. (Though, as you've pointed out, this is not necessarily true and something I'll try to keep in mind.)

I don't think I've read any of your McShep, though -- at least none that I can think of off the top of my head. I haven't been reading much John/Rodney in the last year or so; I've been leaning much more to reading gen and rare pairings in SGA. (I've developed a total love for Teyla/Rodney, which is too bad as there's so little of it out there!) With your fic specifically, to be honest, I really didn't want to read your McShep because I so enjoy your gen fic and I was worried that reading slash from you in the same pairing that I read gen from you would ruin the gen for me. (Oh, wait! I did read your John/Rodney Shrine tag, mostly because I was looking for Rodney/Teyla recs for ficrec -- and it will probably get recced over there if I ever finish up my monthly rec set. ^^ Because you labeled it slash, I read it from that perspective, reading John's hovering over Rodney in the infirmary as an "anxious girlfriend" sort of thing rather than a concerned friend. I know that may not have been your intent, especially from what you've said above, but I don't think I'm emotionally capable of seeing both at the same time.)

Ahh, it makes sense you'd avoid my slash, yeah. I don't see it as that different from my gen (truth be told I consider most of my gen-fics as borderline slash anyway; in a couple of them John & Rodney could actually be together, it just doesn't come up in the story itself. I don't really think of it one way or another...) But I wouldn't want my gen ruined for you! ^^;

John & Rodney weren't actually together in "The Shrine" tag; it was pre-slash, and the intimacy I was implying between them wasn't necessarily sexual; Teyla saw it as such, but it could've been something else. Though I admit to wondering what the difference is between an "anxious girlfriend"'s and a "concerned friend"'s concern! Amount of hand-wringing? (...seriously, I don't understand what the difference could be; this is how tone-deaf I am to romantic vs friendship love. As far as I'm concerned, slashing John & Rodney changes their relationship in the bedroom, nowhere else...that's the way I like my slash!)

I just wanted to say again that I'm sorry for sounding like (well, "sounding like" hell, I guess I was) condemning your and a lot of other people's style of fanning, and I need to shut up about it before I lose every last slash-inclining fan-friend that I have. ^^;; I swear I'm not sitting around in fandom feeling unappreciated and miserable; I do not resent slashers for having something I don't, and of course I think people are entitled to feel any way they please about canon. Obviously, though, I had a bit of a pent-up whine. ^^;;

Regarding the rest of your comment, I find it completely fascinating because it is so very counter-intuitive to me. For me, writing romance (slash or het) has nothing to do with securing a happy-ever-after for the characters (which, in my head, they already have) and everything to do with exploring feelings and character dynamics that aren't possible in a platonic relationship. The idea of sexually pairing off two characters who already have a close and satisfying relationship in order to assure their happily-ever-after is so phenomenally UNlike how I view sex and romance that I have trouble even wrapping my brain around it. I mean, from a sociological standpoint, it makes perfect sense to me, considering our society's emphasis on happy-ever-after and romance as the pinnacle of human relationships. It just doesn't really work for me on an emotional level.

It does make a whole whopping lot of sense out of the whole "we're not gay" phenomenon, though -- which I never really believed existed (I don't really think it does in SGA fandom) until reading some meta that pointed to stories of that nature, and my brain had to do MAJOR pretzel-twisting to comprehend it! The way you explain it, though, makes more sense out of it -- that it's basically friendship given the social seal of approval to be friendship forever, which comes by way of sex ... basically, exploiting a loophole in society's standards for love and foreverness. That is ... odd. ^^ And I can see why actual gay people are rather offended by it. But yeah, I can see why people would put the two together in that way.

(WTF, LJ's spell checker claims "foreverness" is a real word, but not "fandom"? Hi, spell checker, confused much?)

Heh - that's the thing; your perspective is utterly counter-intuitive to me. It took me a long time to realize that you see sexual love and friendship love as mutually exclusive, because that just doesn't make sense to me...!

As far as I know "We're not gay, we just love each other" doesn't really exist anymore except as holdovers in the older fandoms - because gay people did find it so offensive, and because social standards are changing; from what I know, some of the early slashers actually were homophobic, but they wanted their "happily ever after" enough to make exceptions. I haven't read much fic like that myself, my main knowledge is from Henry Jenkins - but that's the thing, when I first read about it, it made total sense to me; I didn't have to try to understand it. I'd always been saddened to know that the expectations of a normal life would eventually break up almost all my favorite friendship pairs; in slashdom I found many fans who shared my disappointment in the inevitable breakup, who wanted to deny it.

Which is why slash isn't everything to me; if you can convince me that the characters will have a happily ever after together without being sexually involved, I tend to be all over that. I don't *require* a romantic "ever after" to satisfy me; it's just that without one, there's nearly always the expectation that romance has to happen, sooner or later, and thus the friendship I like will end, unless the friendship becomes the romance.

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would you like a little RAGE with your RAGE?

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